Mar 20, 2008

On The Other Hand

Mrs. T was trying to explain the old "Cheezburger, Cheezburger" SNL skit to the Tadpoles just now and I suggested that she might find it on Hulu.

And there it was, along with a few hundred other classic SNL skits. (The skit is officially called "Olympia Restaurant" and was inspired by a diner the cast used to frequent near the studio. Places like this were fairly common in NYC in the 70s.)

Hulu makes it easy to link and share and embed all their video, so I'm posting it here for you. Some of my readers may be too young to remember this, but it was one of the skits that made Saturday Night Live famous back in the day. Take note of the people smoking in the restaurant and other period details... and also how not-that-different-than-2008 it looks otherwise (this is from 1978, I believe)

Enjoy

UPDATE: Seems you need to watch a :15 or :30 pre-roll commercial first. Curious as to your reactions to that. And if you click on the video as it opens, it will take you to the actual Hulu site where you can watch it full screen.

UPDATE 2: Seems that Hulu doesn't work in certain other countries. Or anywhere outside the US. Let me know if it blocks you like it did Dun.

I've been watching Chuck on Hulu since I'm rarely at home when it airs. I kind of like their service. The design feels clean; the player looks good. The organization of the library is a little cumbersome (like I really care what studio made what show?). Luckily, also, my new ad-blocking gizmo on my browser skips right past the commercials too. ;) It's like Tivo except, on my laptop and free.

@dun: I suspect it's some sort of legal thing having to do with paying for residuals outside of the US and all.

@raafi: I find that the picture quality degrades considerably when I watch things full screen on my 13" MacBook. Are you having similar issues or are you getting good pictures. (I find that iTunes downloads look fine full screen, fwiw)

Quality-wise, you're right. You can't beat iTunes. ABC's online player is pretty incredible though; a clunky, bloated interface, but the HD streams are great. Hulu, I'd put at the next tier down. More of a VHS kind of thing. Still, user experience-wise, the on-demandness of hulu I'd put higher than any of the ones I mention, and that counts for something.

Pre-roll doesn’t bother me. I'm used to it from Spike/ifilm on all their stuff or most of the major news sites. I think the bigger hurdle for people will be more about watching content on the computer that's feature length that may not be the quality they're used to.